Gophers hockey will have at least 31 games televised in 2018-19 season

The Big Ten announced game times and TV information for the Gophers men’s hockey 2018-19 season on Wednesday, and 31 of 35 games are scheduled to be televised.

The majority of Gophers games will air on either FSN (11) or FSN Plus (7), while the Big Ten Network will broadcast 10. The Gophers will appear on ESPNU once, FOX9+ once and the Midco Sports Network once. In addition, broadcast info for the Nov. 3 game at Minnesota State Mankato and the Jan. 11-12 series at Notre Dame will be announced later.

The Oct. 6 season opener at defending national champion Minnesota Duluth will air on My9 on northeastern Minnesota and FOX9+ throughout the entire state. The Gophers play rival North Dakota on Oct. 27 in Las Vegas, and that game is scheduled to air on the Midco Sports Network, which is not available to most of the Twin Cities market. North Dakota, as the home team for the game, owns the TV rights. The game will be available on livestream through a paid subscription to NCHC.tv.

Other notes on the schedule:

* The Nov. 17 game against St. Lawrence is the only game with broadcast rights held by the Big Ten that will not be televised. The athletic department is looking into alternative viewing options for that game, along with the Oct. 20 exhibition game against Trinity Western University.

* The Gophers’ series opener at Wisconsin on Nov. 9 will air live on FOX Sports Wisconsin and on tape delay on FOX Sports North.

* The starting time for the Feb. 15 game at Ohio State on BTN will be announced later.

* Every game on the Gophers’ schedule will be on Friday or Saturday, with two exceptions: The season-opening home-and-home series against Minnesota Duluth (Oct. 6-7) is Saturday-Sunday, as is the Jan. 19-20 series at Michigan State.

* Twenty-two of the Gophers’ 37 games (including exhibitions) have 7 p.m. starts. Three games have 8 p.m. starts, three have 5 p.m. starts, two will start at 4 p.m., two will start at 4:30 p.m. and one will start at 1 p.m. Three game times are yet to be announced.